Page 47 of Silent Cravings

“Everything all right, Miss?” My driver asked, eyeing me in the mirror.

“As long as you get me out of here,” I replied, staring down at my phone rather than glancing at Evan. I released a shuddering sigh as we rolled away from the country club, and before we turned out onto the road, a brilliant burst of color lit the night sky. I twisted in my seat, watching the blue, red, and golden explosions. It was spectacular, the perfect end to a perfect evening.

Not for me, though. I could barely see, thanks to the tears in my eyes as I typed a text to Bianca.

Me:You were such a rock star this weekend. Thank you for everything. I am officially giving you the coming week off. No excuses, no arguments. I am going to take a little time to myself as well. There’s nothing that can’t wait until next week. We both have more than earned a little break. Enjoy it.

What was the point of owning my own business if I couldn’t retreat for a little while when it felt like my whole world was tumbling down?

Dropping the phone in my lap, I covered my face with my hands, sobbing quietly in the back seat of a stranger’s car while the world lit up all around me. That was how I’d been for so long. Aware of the beauty and life surrounding me but unable to enjoy it.

18

EVAN

“We’re going to need to bring in a second event coordinator if this keeps up.” Serena pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbing it like she was trying to ward off a headache. “I mean, I’m not complaining that we have all these new requests after the wedding, but I don’t know that we have enough manpower to cover all of it.”

“I’ll have to look into that,” I agreed, though my heart wasn’t in it. “Things are going to be pretty busy going forward.”

“You know, those properties you were looking at in Rhode Island and that second place in Cape Cod are still on the market,” she pointed out, sort of playful. “I know you were thinking about making an offer. With all this new business coming in, nothing’s holding you back now. You could take your empire as big as you want so long as you promise to keep me on in some capacity.”

I offered a sincere, if weary, grin. “Believe me. There are a lot of things I could do without, but you are not one of them.”

My phone buzzed with a text, and the sight of Aria’s name on the screen pushed everything out of the way for now. I turned back to my Mac, where Serena chatted with me over Zoom. “I need to get going. I have another meeting here in town. When I’m back in the office, we’ll go over all these new inquiries.”

“And the information on those other properties?”

“We’ll see.” It was almost unthinkable but no less true. I could hardly remember why it had ever seemed so important, having a certain number of properties under my belt by the time I turned thirty.

What difference would it make? Would I be any happier? Would it fill some void in my life?

I grabbed my phone and pulled up Aria’s text like it was a life jacket on a stormy sea. It had been a few hours since I reached out to ask about Valentina, who’d been completely MIA since the wedding. By Friday morning, I had decided enough was enough. I needed answers. If I couldn’t get my response from her, Aria seemed like the natural person to turn to.

Aria:Meet me at the café in the lobby of my building. I’ll be down there in fifteen.

Thank fuck. I was afraid for a minute there she would stonewall me the way her sister had. It had been a long, ugly five days since Valentina handed me my ass outside the country club. She hadn’t said anything I didn’t need to hear. That didn’t make the memory easier to bear or the wounds easier to deal with.

I’d hurt her so much worse than I had ever imagined. I could hardly stand to look at myself in the mirror, knowing she had loved me, and I broke her heart.

She had never told me that. There was so much I never knew.

I wasted no time getting across town to the apartment building on Central Park West, where Aria and Miles had been living there together for a couple of months.

The café off the lobby was busy, full of customers craving their caffeine fix. Aria hadn’t come down yet, so I picked up a cup of black coffee for me and an oat milk latte for her after hearing her order one the morning after the wedding. She was still nowhere around by the time I took a seat at a two-top by the window overlooking the street.

Valentina would hate knowing I went to her sister for help. Nobody wanted to know the people in their life went behind their backs to talk about them. She had to understand this was all the result of caring so damn much about her. I lived and breathed Valentina since the engagement party. Nearly every fucking, waking moment was all her.

And if she refused to? Well, that would be par for the course.

A head full of blue hair bobbed on the other side of a line of customers, and a moment later, Aria broke through, spotting me at the far end of the room. The worry lines between her delicate brows told an entire story before she reached the table.

“Thanks for coming down to talk to me,” I offered. “I got you an oat milk latte if you’re interested.”

“Oh, thanks. That was thoughtful.” She dropped into the chair across from mine and opened the lid of her cup. “So. My sister. You’re not the only one she’s basically shut out of her life all week. I get, like, one-word texts from her, and only when I ask her to let me know she’s still alive.”

My heart sank. There I was, hoping I was the only one she had blocked out. “It’s my fault. She’s mad at me. I made a huge mistake.”

“You’ve made mistakes before,” she pointed out, smirking. “What’s so different this time?”

---